3 more arrested in ex-nationalist head’s murder

ANKARA

Three more people, including Tolgahan Demirbaş, alleged to have been caught in the house of a Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lawmaker, have been arrested in the investigation launched into the assassination of the former head of an ultra-nationalist group, Grey Wolves.

However, Demirbaş denied the accusation in his statement. “I am not a member of the MHP. The claim that I was caught in the house of a deputy is not true,” Demirbaş said.

Demirbaş and Emre Yüksel, the deputy head of the group, was found to be detained for the third time. The two were arrested for “killing by design.”

Two attackers on a motorcycle had shot Sinan Ateş, an academic from Hacettepe University, in the head as he was leaving a building in the capital Ankara last December. Ateş, seriously injured, could not be saved despite all the interventions in the hospital.

Demirbaş denied the allegations that he was caught in the house of a deputy and said, “I am not a member of the MHP,” in his statement.

Separately, Serdar Öktem, who was the lawyer of Doğukan Çep, claimed to be the instigator of the attack, was also arrested, bringing the total number to 18. The alleged shooter Eray Özyağcı has still not been caught.

A total of 15 suspects, including special operations police officers Murat Can Çolak and Aşkın Mert Gelenbey, and Ufuk Köktürk, who were in the former Istanbul administration of the MHP, were arrested previously as part of the investigation, while judicial control measures were applied to four suspects.

The Grey Wolves, officially known by the name Idealist Hearths, or Ülkü Ocakları in Turkish, is a far-right youth organization and political movement affiliated with the MHP.

Established by colonel Alparslan Türkeş in the late 1960s, it rose to prominence during the late 1970s political violence in Türkiye when its members engaged in urban warfare with left-wing militants and activists.